Space Time Stories » blog http://www.spacetimestories.com Space and Time Travel Stories. A Science Fiction Blog By Sean O'Brien Fri, 11 Nov 2011 02:24:44 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.5 io9 – What’s the deal? http://www.spacetimestories.com/commentary/io9-whats-the-deal/ http://www.spacetimestories.com/commentary/io9-whats-the-deal/#comments Thu, 04 Dec 2008 03:10:09 +0000 Sean http://www.spacetimestories.com/?p=92 io9 is a science fiction blog run by Gawker media.  They appear to want lots of input, but they also lock people out of adding comments.  Why don’t they want comments?  Perhaps it’s just me, has anybody been quickly given authority to comment?

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]]> http://www.spacetimestories.com/commentary/io9-whats-the-deal/feed/ 0 Free Science Fiction Pays for Itself http://www.spacetimestories.com/commentary/free-science-fiction-pays-for-itself/ http://www.spacetimestories.com/commentary/free-science-fiction-pays-for-itself/#comments Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:26:45 +0000 Sean http://www.spacetimestories.com/?p=23 Gordon Van Gelder wrote a post describing F&SF’s foray into free science fiction. He describes their policies then offers a survey to determine views towards online free science fiction. Most of the comments are from customers, not authors. So I’ll offer my 2 cents.

The reason I publish my time travel stories online is that I will end up making a lot more money here than I would ever see from print. Simple advertising such as Adsense, Amazon Associates, and Clickbank offer me more revenue than I will ever make from published work of science fiction short stories. Note that I am not referring to a novel. When my novel is complete I plan to aggressively market it to brick and mortar publishers because there is more money there (and possible movie rights !)

If I submit a short story to F&SF I might make $1000. That’s it, that’s the sum total of all money I’ll ever make on that story. If however that story is available on my blog then advertising revenue can stream in for decades. The amount of money attributed to each story may be difficult to count, but that doesn’t mean it’s zero. Far from it.

Let’s assume an author writes 10 stories per year. After 10 years that’s 100 stories. It’s highly unlikely that all or even most of those stories would be published. So let’s assume that 10 of them would generate $1000 each. That’s $10,000. The rest will never see ink on paper.

A well run blog with a reasonable amount of advertising could easily generate 2-5 times that amount. It’s reasonable that over a period of 30 years those 100 stories might generate as much as $300,000.

Internet marketing has permanently changed the short story publishing industry. The change is irrevocable, dramatic, and liberating. More people will read my stories here than would ever read them on paper, as many as 1000 times more people. That audience has a monetary value to an author which cannot be matched by ink on paper. As a science fiction author I doubt I will ever submit a short story for publication. It’s simple economics.

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]]> http://www.spacetimestories.com/commentary/free-science-fiction-pays-for-itself/feed/ 2 Free Science Fiction from Tor http://www.spacetimestories.com/commentary/free-science-fiction-from-tor/ http://www.spacetimestories.com/commentary/free-science-fiction-from-tor/#comments Sat, 21 Jun 2008 18:41:07 +0000 Sean http://www.spacetimestories.com/?p=15 Tor Books offers free science fiction downloads every week just for signing up. Not sure if they ever have science fiction short stories.

This week’s book is In the Midnight Hour by Patti O’Shea. The next book will be Battlestar Galactica by Jeffrey Carver.

They don’t appear to have a science fiction blog.

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]]> http://www.spacetimestories.com/commentary/free-science-fiction-from-tor/feed/ 0 Self-Aware Blog http://www.spacetimestories.com/fiction/self-aware-blog/ http://www.spacetimestories.com/fiction/self-aware-blog/#comments Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:14:22 +0000 Sean http://www.spacetimestories.com/?p=9 I’m worried my blog is on the verge of achieving sentience. I’ve noticed that some of my time travel stories have achieved a life of their own. What would it mean for a blog to be self-aware? Would it take comments personally? Would it seize control of the entire Internet and retaliate for poor digg rankings? Would it attempt to manipulate the US Presidential election? Or would it humbly accept its role as an aspiring science fiction blog and generate outstanding content?

My personal preference would be for it to send time travel email 24 hours into the past with the names of 2-3 top performing stocks from each trading day! Now that would be a useful AI.

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